Tip. How do you handle a heavy cactus when repotting
Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 4:38 pm
The cactus in this topic is a Mammillaria hahniana. My kitchen scale will weigh a maximum of somewhere in the vicinity of 5 kilos or 10 lb. When I set this container on the scale, I get an overload indicator. I say this so that you'll know that the cactus in its pot of dry soil weighs more than 10 lb. Here's the cactus:
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So, how do you pick up a cactus that weighs several pounds, probably somewhere in the vicinity of five or six, and then hold it in one hand while you pour new soil around its roots with the other hand? Unless you have two artificial hands, it just can't be done. And even if you have a pair of gloves that are thick enough to protect your very sensitive and personally very important fingers, it's just too heavy to hold with one hand. So what are you do?
Wrap a thick, folded kitchen towel around it. This will protect the spines and your hands from the spines in the event you need to handle it.
You then tie a piece of twine or rope (I used paracord) around the towel just tight enough so that it won't slip off. You then loop the rope over the top of cactus and tie it to the selfsame rope, directly opposite of the knot that you have first tied in it. {This it is important for balance. If you do not have the weight of the cactus equally distributed between the two knots then it will lean to one side when you pick it up.} You now have a handle that you can use to hold the cactus above the pot while you shovel in new soil. Here's a picture of what this tip looks like: .
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I hope this tip provides someone with some useful information for a possible way to handle your cactus. Or gives you some idea of how you might handle a similar situation. Be creative.
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So, how do you pick up a cactus that weighs several pounds, probably somewhere in the vicinity of five or six, and then hold it in one hand while you pour new soil around its roots with the other hand? Unless you have two artificial hands, it just can't be done. And even if you have a pair of gloves that are thick enough to protect your very sensitive and personally very important fingers, it's just too heavy to hold with one hand. So what are you do?
Wrap a thick, folded kitchen towel around it. This will protect the spines and your hands from the spines in the event you need to handle it.
You then tie a piece of twine or rope (I used paracord) around the towel just tight enough so that it won't slip off. You then loop the rope over the top of cactus and tie it to the selfsame rope, directly opposite of the knot that you have first tied in it. {This it is important for balance. If you do not have the weight of the cactus equally distributed between the two knots then it will lean to one side when you pick it up.} You now have a handle that you can use to hold the cactus above the pot while you shovel in new soil. Here's a picture of what this tip looks like: .
.
I hope this tip provides someone with some useful information for a possible way to handle your cactus. Or gives you some idea of how you might handle a similar situation. Be creative.